


A Foul Mistake

by CuriousNymph



Category: Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Anne Shirley just needs a friend, Anne Shirley's inability to leave well enough alone, Anne and Gilbert are god tier slow burn, Awkward Conversations, Awkward Romance, Bad Decisions, Bittersweet, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, Enjoy lovely people, Eventual Romance, F/M, Friendship, Gilbert Blythe is a life-ruiner, Hate to Love, Humor, I Don't Even Know, Identity Issues, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, It came to me after watching season two, It's such a great ship name I love it, It's what every great romance has, Like their relationship, Like there's a lot of gallivanting across fields here, Multi, Secret Crush, Self-Acceptance, Series One and Two inclusive, Shirbert, Sidelong Glances, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Some fun too, Teenage Drama, Unresolved Romantic Tension, but anyways, the importance of friendship, well anyway
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-06-12 00:44:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15327999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CuriousNymph/pseuds/CuriousNymph
Summary: Anne Shirley Cuthbert has made many a mistake in her life, and she's not even been counting.Seemingly incapable of doing anything right at any given time, Anne's actually beginning to think life just has it out for her.In fact, she'd even concede that everything in her life has been one mistake after another.But maybe - just maybe - meeting Gilbert Blythe wasn't the mistake she thought it was.





	1. Part One: First Impressions

**Author's Note:**

> Hello again! A new story emerges. 
> 
> After watching the new series of Anne with an 'E' in two days flat, and hence having severe withdrawal symptoms of not having another series to binge, I decided to embark on my own fic about the two lovebirds that have quite literally captured my heart. The new series has every ounce of love from me, because it's such a masterpiece that I could vent for days about it. 
> 
> As it stands, it'll be a while before we get any dibs on what might happen in season three, but for now, and for all curious, here's a fab article that will leave you feeling giddy with expectation: https://www.indiewire.com/2018/07/anne-with-an-e-season-3-queer-soiree-bash-moira-walley-beckett-1201984101/
> 
> All the kudos to Moira Walley Beckett! 
> 
> No idea how long this might be, but certainly at least five chapters. None will be overly long, but there'll be a deep focus on Anne as the main character. Female protagonists are my everything, and with one as dynamic and sprightly and complex as Anne, I'm not going to dilute her one bit. 
> 
> But there will be romance for our favourite wannabe doctor, because of course. 
> 
> Anyone who already knows my work, a playlist started construction before I even started writing, so please listen away to that whilst reading, if you like that sort of thing: https://open.spotify.com/user/ingenioussprite/playlist/5XwbuCnnmXRVXO8DzeAqiE
> 
> Reviews, kudos, all that jazz - it's always appreciated, and I love you all to bits! The continued support of my work has been humbling and fantastic from day one, so thank you all again! I couldn't do it without you.

The first mistake, Anne thinks, is when she ever thought to look Gilbert Blythe in the eye.

She knows this, of course. But it hadn’t stopped her. Her first walk with Gilbert Blythe serves as a constant reminder of exactly what she ought not to do if she’s to plan on making friends; on _fitting in_. She’s realized – for better or worse or somewhere inbetween – that she has an insanely bad knack for garnering attention no matter where she finds herself, and it’s becoming a quality that’s earning her more than her dish of interesting peculiar, disgusted and pitiful looks. Getting into scrapes seems to be her superpower. Her severely _ill-gifted_ superpower.

It makes no sense to her, either – since when do people have labels? Since when are people off limits? This is Josie Pye’s opinion, and solely so. Because apparently, Gilbert Blythe ought to be as out of reach for her as the moon, and that should be the end of it. It’s all told with a sharp tongue and a smile wholly used to getting people to bow down to her overruling supremacy, and Josie Pye is a hateful wretch if Anne ever saw one.

Gilbert isn’t _Ruby’s_ – he doesn’t _belong_ to her. Anne believes nobody ever truly belongs to anybody and everything. The earth she so often cradles her feet in is all she can ever truly belong to, as natural and mortal as she is. That’s all there is to it. Gilbert Blythe is his own person – but come to the schoolyard, and the natural way of things is subverted to fit how these people interact.

But nevertheless, she obliges, even though something in her tells her that this is against everything she has ever had the nerve to hold as a value. He seems as confused as her by the whole ordeal – a small, delighted but ultimately confused little smirk finding its way to his mouth, eyes sparkling with mirth and mischief and all manner of boyish tendencies, but he looks frustrated, too. As if this whole thing is a joke being strung out past its original run. She’s admitting to nothing, mind. Anne Shirley doesn’t want anything to do with Gilbert Blythe – even if she can’t help but find him intriguing because he’s off limits.

Rules will be the death of her, she knows it.

But she won’t lose friends over a stupid boy. Because that’s what Gilbert is to become in her eyes – a stupid boy, just like all the rest.

Except – he doesn’t seem content to leave her alone.

Anne considers, on many of her walks to school, that she could probably have her survived her whole life and been none the worse for it if she’d never met Gilbert. He’s a classmate, on the other side of the room, a row behind her, and it infuriates her that such circumstances have only meant that she’s had to come to terms with his existence – it was never a necessity to know him. Ruby certainly seems in blatant awe of him, but for what, Anne can’t determine. It’s a whole, convoluted thing, splayed out in front of her, seemingly obvious to others, but oblivious to her. He’s nothing to her, because she reminds herself that her experience with boys has led her to assume the same of all of them: they’re a waste of time, they talk out of their arses, and are physically incapable of saying anything without making it sound like a simultaneous and much unwanted insult and crude remark, usually within the space of a breath. Gilbert isn’t your typical boy – there’s a chivalry and slyness to him that Anne thinks is somehow lacking in the others. Charlie, Cole, Moody, maybe even Jerry if she ever decides to back down on her pride – they never act like the other boys; there’s something different there, too. But Gilbert holds himself entirely different; the tilt of his mouth is different.

He mocks her, but not to be cruel.

But it is cruel, regardless. To vie for her attention when he very well knows that she can’t talk to him, and won’t ever.

Unless he doesn’t.

It bothers her, really. That she’s finding it so difficult to fit in. Anne has never been one to turn down an offer of friendship, because she’s a girl that’s known the back of someone’s hand too often to accept anything more than a promise of something. She’s never careful enough, not in her own eyes; she’s always regretting her own methods of doing things, but only hours and days and weeks after said despairing actions come back to whisper in her ear at night. It’s a reminder to her that what she has graciously found in Avonlea is tentative and merely a respite from horror. People will never like her, because the red hair of a witch who dances around trees in her nightdress is never going to garner favour. Anne knows this, and it pulls at her heart even as she smiles, blatantly aware of how unsteady her tightrope walk is.

Diana can’t consort with her forever. She can’t keep smoothing over her mistakes. Anne has been alone all her life – and she has learned what it means to lose yourself.

Even as the other girls tease, and speak their mind, she remembers – and reminds herself – that they will never know the screams of children wailing in her arms, or the press of someone against their back, or the forever present humiliation and fear and gut –wrenching, stomach-punching guilt that climbs up her throat every time she remembers the first time her skirt was flipped, and not for the other girls’ laughter.

But she doesn’t let it rule her. She never will.

There is more to the world than an empty hallway, books balancing on her lead-like arms, and the small wonders of white cherry tree blossoms and pools of water sparkling in a dying sun tell her everything she doesn’t already know: the world has hope, and so should she.

But reality is only a glance away from her, and she falls headfirst into it again the minute Gilbert Blythe tries to make her pay attention to him.

Her first mistake was ever looking at him. But she feels like her second one might be interacting with him.

When she feels the paper knock against her foot, the breathing of the room a reminder to her that it is not only his eyes that watch her, albeit far more kindly than she has ever seen so far within this abysmal place – _cloistered in these living walls of jet,_ sparks John Donne – she freezes, a chill running down her spine. He cannot do this to her. Not now. Not when Ruby’s resolve is one glance from Gilbert away from crumbling, along with everything Anne has worked so hard to keep intact, pulling frantically at all the strings attached to keep it in knotted together.

She can’t allow him to do this to her.

But he doesn’t let up.

A piece of chalk, flung her way next. Anne fumes.

And then, when he comes to her side, down on bent knee, the pierce of Ruby’s gaze seems almost inescapable. In the seconds that it happens, she’s able to give him the briefest of considerations, just to see how he measures up in this instant. She garners a brief understanding of exactly what it is about Gilbert Blythe that has sent Ruby into a mad frenzy over him for three years, but it’s a purely physical attribute. More – and worse – can be said for his own behaviour.

He’s got one of those faces, she thinks – discontent with being ignored, even when he’s trying to be. Ivory skin, with black hair curling every which way around his temples, an abundant and untidy display that does nothing to soften the striking look of him, a quick tilt of the lips and flash of those dark eyes, and it’d send anyone mad for him.

But not Anne.

Gilbert Blythe is the very thorn in her side, the needle that never stops pricking her finger – and most definitely not the prince she asked for.

“Carrots!”

It’s not what she expects, but it’s enough. Years upon years of being pulled and hauled and thrown about the place has made her wiry and strong and with bones like iron, but it also means that the scars never fade. Every touch can mean the next slap across the face, the next punch in the gut, the next kick in her side, and she’s had enough of him.

She. Has had. Enough.

Fiery, wilful, daring, unprecedented – maybe that’s how she ought to be described.

Determined, disobedient, independent, obnoxious. Maybe that as well.

But a push-over? In Gilbert Blythe’s dizziest daydreams, maybe, but certainly not in hers.

Her hands slam against the table top, slate in her hands, and Gilbert Blythe’s form, despite his not-so-nonchalant display beside her, is quite literally slapped in the face with his own actions.

The slate cracks against his cheek, the pain exploding in her wrist as the awkward angle twists it in such a way that makes it difficult to get exactly the impact she’d like, but it doesn’t matter.

If that doesn’t teach him, nothing else will.

The entire class has been stunned into silence; a nice change, Anne thinks, but certainly not to her benefit.

It’s his fault, of course. It always is at this point. Stupid boys don’t know when to give up. They don’t know that she wants to be left alone.

Or they do. And they just don’t care.

He’s off limits to her. Surely he _knows_ this?

The crack in the slate is vicious, and like a blemish in her hand. Gilbert’s hand is smoothing the side of his cheek, trying to be sure of the impact and the red welt that is blooming on his cheek like a red rose in the summer.

But he doesn’t care.

He just smirks.

Anne’s fury is untameable, and it’ll be the bog in the woods for him next if he doesn’t quit looking at her. She’ll not be held responsible if he drowns, or at the very least, finds himself looking and smelling like days old cow pat and sludge.

He tries to take the blame, but it’s too late. His plea for Mr Phillips’ clemency goes unheard, and she only briefly catches sight of his horrified, guilty expression.

He knows he’s done this. He has just realized what he has done to her.

And how exactly she might have to pay for it.

She laments Mr Phillips’ deliberate expulsion of the ‘e’ from her name, and she resists the urge to throw a jibe of her own back at him – of telling him that the orphanage taught her a lot more than just how to throw a good hit.

It taught her how to hold her head high.

It taught her to be fierce, and proud, and honest, and above everything else, never ashamed of who she was, no matter how they beat her down.

She runs from them all, and she hopes Gilbert Blythe never sees the look of her again. Because she has made her exit, and he will avoid her for the rest of her life, just like everybody else, and just like everyone always has done.

 


	2. Part Two: A Reckoning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter, and more development. I concentrated on the main scenes here, but I was aware that if I lingered too long on anything, I'd find myself digging a hole deeper than I needed. We all know how amazing series 2 was - you hardly need me to spell it out for you in flowery language. 
> 
> But, I digress. This chapter was a bundle of fun to write, just because Anne has so many memorable moments in both series that really define her character. I always find it more interesting when a character fails. It somehow feels more relateable. 
> 
> The next chapters from here on in will be me taking the liberty train and using the original texts as a slight reference to what will come in the future. I've never read the books, but I am researching the story as best as I can until I can get my hands on some hard copies of the original books. 
> 
> Once again, enjoy at your lesiure. 
> 
> More to come.

Anne has never bargained on being troubled by much since the events of her arrival. As things go, she’s settled in nicely at Green Gables, with Marilla’s firm but contented smile enough to get her through a day.

Until, of course, some inane idiot in the sky decides her life needs to be ruined.

 _As things go_ , finding your sheets covered in blood is one thing. Finding out that it’ll keep happening until she has lines carved into her face from age and creaking like an old chair is quite _another_ matter. It’s the _smell_ that she can’t get past – it’s thick and rancid, nothing like the blood that’s dripped from her knee after getting into scrapes or when she’s lost a tooth and her gum feels strangely empty.

No. This blood is something else _entirely_. It’s dark and clotted and sticky and stinks to high hell.

Anne decides that’s it. She must be dying. She _has_ to be. There’s nothing else for it. Her tears mingle in with the steaming water, scrubbing away her skin as much as the cotton of the sheets, and ruining them in the process, for all the good it’s doing. There’s just too much. It's like the scene of some horrid murder – like arteries burst and left to bleed themselves dry.

Anne gulps.

Marilla eventually explains everything, and in the midst of it all, the loss of education for a day pops up. It’s too humiliating to consider. She can’t – not with Gilbert –

 _Gilbert_.

 _Oh Christ_ , Anne thinks. Merciful Lord. What if it doesn’t stop? What if she starts bleeding out of other places too, right in the middle of class? She’ll _drown_ her whole class in it, it’ll –

Marilla gives her a stern turning around and tells her to go back to bed, but not without a degree of sympathy in her tone, the woman’s lined face pulled into a smile not unlike ones that have graced her before.

It gets worse from then on in.

The pain won’t stop. Even as she sits in class, it seems content not to subside, turning over and over in her stomach, refusing her any appetite or movement, and staring at the slate is all she can do to try and keep it from making her scream. Every two seconds, and a flurry of panic makes her think it’s leaking through her under-things, and the uncertainty is like watching blood flow from a wound, and refusing to clot. How ironic is _that_.

She’s been told it’ll just keep coming til it’s done. There’s no preventing it. That’s probably the worst thing.

No, actually – the knowledge that you can only guess when it might come is _worse_. What’s she supposed to do if she isn’t prepared for it? Does she just not move until someone gets her help?

Good Lord, it’s the most inconvenient thing she’s ever encountered, and that’s saying something.

Even as she’s called upon, moments later, the fluttering in her abdomen is from more than panic. She can’t envision the looks on anyone’s faces, just on how utterly ruined her apron will be is she manages to bleed through it all, just as Ruby seems to have thought was possible. She dreads to think what might happen, considering how quickly she might be able to leave the school house if she runs with every inch of her strength. Maybe if her cotton pad might stop _itching_ for two seconds –

Her third mistake is ever allowing this to go to her head. Marilla scolds her for being so ridiculous – ‘It won’t bleed out everywhere, Anne, don’t be so foolish!’ – but she finds it hard to believe her, taking a glance at her under-things every two minutes with little more than terrified whimper, unable to consider anything more than a second on it. It’s just too awful.

Anne hates being a woman. It’s her fourth mistake – thinking it was ever something to wish for.

It just seems like way more trouble than it’s worth.

~          ~          ~

On the subject of Gilbert Blythe, Anne is firm. She can’t stand him, and she’s made that clear. She won’t have him going and ruining her life when she’s only just _got_ here. He tries, of course, and it infuriates her to no end. If he was really trying any harder, he’d be on the road to bursting a blood vessel by next week.

Pertaining to her ‘womanly flowering time’ – or period, which Marilla says is the more common word for it, it drags on, but Anne has come to realize that bleeding into her knickers every month, despite its grisly horror, ought not to be her priority. There are too many other things to worry about – if anything, it can serve as an excuse for surly behaviour, at best. She plans never to have to stoop that low, but nevertheless. It’s never a bad thing to be prepared for such things.

Her time at the school house becomes less odious by comparison, as she learns how best to deal with the everyday issues that seem to crop up. At least with Diana, and now Ruby, she can at least hope for comfort of a sort. If only Josie Pye would learn not to talk out of her arse as much as the boys do - but just garnished with a sinister smile that would do well on a crow -  things might improve. You can only do so much, Anne considers.

She’s not far wrong.

As comforts go, as well, Anne is learning exactly what it might be like to have a family. If ever she had found a more companionable and agreeable place to be, Green Gables might just be the ticket. It’s amazing to consider how easily she has slipped into her new life – nightmares aside, where one word can throw her back to a time when even fresh air could be considered a luxury in itself – well, it serves as another reminder, once again, that she ought to never take such things for granted. Tragical as things can sometimes be, she loves where she is now. Because a home is something she has always wished for – a place to feel respected and understood and _listened_ to. They’re small requests in themselves, but seem to be feats of great importance when she sees the _investment_ in such things, particularly when Marilla is willing to forgive and forget.

She’s a mother in the making - Anne is sure of it.

A year passes, and Anne finds it hard to believe that such things can go by without even a blink of an eye – snow coats the ground like a winter coat, snug tight, and the world dies in front of her, the snow its own kingdom for a while yet.

In amongst it all, Gilbert’s father dies.

It strikes Anne that maybe this is how these things go – you suddenly find that someone, to whom you had little inclination, suddenly becomes painstakingly familiar and similar that it resembles looking in a mirror. He doesn’t cry – so, _unlike_ her, his emotion is for a dark bedroom with only his own breathing to console him, and his heartbeat in his ear – but he snaps at her, and although it makes her angry, it makes her very soul bleed for him.

Because he knows grief as she does, but has perhaps known it for a while.

But she ruins it. She calls him lucky, and in an instant, once teasing and confident Gilbert becomes a lonely, distant star, cold to touch and his expression slipping into one of ineffectual spite. His very sadness clings to his back, and makes his shoulders heave with the weight. It makes him seem dead to the eye alone. He is a lone, black-clothed figure, bundled in his sorrow as well as his scarf, and the brightness and mischief that once lay in his teasing eyes, dark in their sincerity, is lost, dulled and forgotten. He has no time for amusement anymore.

Anne grieves for him, but she lets him drift from her very mind. There is little to consider when her own sorrows weigh her down well enough, but she soon begins to understand his claim to solemnity. Being alone certainly has its attractions.

It’s only when he decrees he’s leaving that something hits her.

It happens weeks later, but something of the old Gilbert seems to have flickered to life in him, that teasing smirk not far off his face, when they encounter each other in Charlottetown, as the coffee steams up into their faces, the heat a pleasing warmth on their cold-chapped faces.

Maybe it’s his expression – he is studying her, like a book that he has longed for all his life, or seeing a map that speaks to him of places that only his very eyes alone could every prove existed in the world. She has grown in ways since she came to Avonlea, and it shows on his face; he studies her, because he will need the memory of her to stay with him. To keep him at ease when he leaves home. In his eyes, he has never seem someone with such clarity to their face – she is spring when there is snow, and summer when there is rain. She might even be rain – something he can bathe in when he needs cleansed.

She’s a storm in a teacup, but only in the battered crockery because society deems it necessary. He could see her becoming a constant thunderstorm in the sky, if allowed, and he’d watch her wreak havoc at close distance.

His expression makes her pause for breath. Never in her short time in Avonlea had she ever willingly considered him handsome, but somehow, the very effort to convey platonic devotion to their playful and competitive relationship breaks down the dam for other things to bleed through. He is beautiful in his own way, Anne decides – with the snow falling into his hair and catching in his lashes; with the intense but longing gaze he casts her way, dark eyes both memorizing and drinking her in, his frame both lithe and comforting. There’s a balance between his boyishness and maturity; he’s lingering between mediums and stuck in both elements, not sure where he should linger. He’s beautiful, but he could become stunning. That’s how he is. Of course it is.

Anne realizes – she’s going to miss him dearly. She longs to embrace him, even just to say goodbye. But it somehow seems superficial – like they can’t really claim anything between each other when they’ve had the barest of interactions.

Anne, privately, believes that maybe Gilbert Blythe has more to him than her insults can possibly convey. She has never considered herself dishonest on any subject – if she sees something, she lets the world around her know.

And Gilbert Blythe – she cannot consider him an enemy any longer.

She’s too resigned to him for that.

So he leaves, with not even a ghost of touch to remind her of his parting, and even as reality tugs her back into her own situations and problems – and romance falls to the wayside again, as incompetent and uncertain and unnecessary in her mind as it was before – something in her tugs.

She concludes:  

Her fifth mistake was letting him go so quietly.

~          ~          ~

It’s humiliation.

It always is with her.

 _Maybe_ , Anne thinks to herself _, I ought to not ever brave the outside again_. But then, the consequence of never seeing the natural beauty blooming right outside her window, in cherry blossoms and falling leaves and drifting petals in the wind, and all manner of sunbeams hitting her window pane and pools of water alike – it would prove too much of a sacrifice. But nevertheless. She’s managing to make a bigger fool of herself than ever before.

It starts with a letter.

She furiously tells herself that it’s only to tell him about the gold, but everyone and their aunt probably already knows that it’s never _just_ a letter where she’s concerned. _Especially_ if it involves Gilbert.

It was a hectic process, trying to draft it perfectly; trying to evoke a tone that’s not altogether eager _or_ pining, but just friendly. It stings to remind herself of his departure, way back in November, standing in the cold, snow underfoot, and seeing the longing in his dark eyes, lips pursed as if he was considering, even for a few seconds, of staying behind. She doubts her face had anything to do with it – but Jerry insists that she’s refusing to admit that he would’ve stood on and stared at her if Jerry hadn’t shooed him away like a perseverant fly.

She sees the image in her head, no matter how wild her imaginings are. He returns to her in short bursts of boredom, as she recalls the past year with a fondness and lightness that pervades none of her other banked memories. She catches scraps of his face in her mind, most notably his mouth, forever tilted in amusement, mockery and intrigue, and it makes her throat burn. She has no idea what she’s supposed to do with these thoughts – box them away, most likely, and never peek inside again.

But it doesn’t stop her from drafting every little word, crossing out every mistake, or biting her lip as every letter gets scratched into the parchment. It makes her more nervous than she remembers being, but she’s been nervous before. Why a letter does it, she pretends not to know.

So when she gets one _back_ – _Miss Anne Shirley Cuthbert_ , her heart sings – it sets off something in her that refuses to be tamed anymore.

She wants him back. Just to see him again. Just to recall him. To tell him –

Well, something. She just doesn’t know what the words are yet.

It’s only as the weeks go by – as more letters fall into her lap – she thinks perhaps he might come home. Maybe. It depends on whether or not he actually wants to; something he claimed a long time ago in a coffee shop that still reminds her of him. She wonders if they’ll end up strangers again – it seems entirely likely. What they barely knew of each other has been lost through separation. And they’ve both gotten on with their lives.

She doesn’t like dwelling on it too much.

What doesn’t help is that her mistakes continue despite his distance, when so many of them she’d already pinned on his back, as the real reason for her failure. It isn’t entirely untrue – she knows he can be a sly git, and make no intention of changing it, but it doesn’t make it any less hard to bare when the only _real_ competition she has decides Avonlea isn’t big enough anymore.

But she misses him. In her own, strange, competitive, non-conforming manner. It’s a mixed up world being a teenage girl; adding a boy into the mix is just asking for trouble.

So she wades through life as Anne Shirley Cuthbert is often trite to do: with a gusto most wouldn’t be able to muster even a little of.

But her looks still make her frown in the few mirrors that Marilla can bare to have in the house, and her ginger braids aren’t darkening as Rachel Lynde once promised her they would. She distinctly recalls that Gilbert’s father thought them extraordinary – why, exactly, will forever remain a mystery, but nevertheless. Her freckles and red hair are growing with her, and by such a measure, are becoming more prominent by the day. Any foul mistakes she’s made thus far deplete in severity in comparison with this one. Red hair is a phenomenon too starkly _weird_ that simply deciding to erase all existence of it is a feat not worth considering. No matter how she longs for the long, black tresses of every princess and queen she reads of, it’s not an option for her. Her red plaits are for attention and scorn, and to remain as stubborn and unnegotiable as her.

So she dyes her hair, and the consequences vary from horrifying to death-inducing.

The green residue is vile enough on its own, were it not also for the fact that the hair itself has gone strangely firm and dry, like all the moisture and life has been strung out of it – like sheets left out to dry. The bitterness if her heart is gone the minute she looks at herself in the reflection, the clock gone past 7 in the evening, and she can’t help but let loose a strangled cry.

 _Holy mother of God_ , what has she _done_?

 If anything has proved more humiliating in her life, it’s finding Marilla at the door with an expression not unlike the one she wears when praying to God above that she manages to live past whatever has happened.

As in, one of utter disbelief and shock, with some tinge of recognition for the fact that – well, she probably should have seen this coming. Anne complains enough about her hair for it to become a hobby.

At least she isn’t trying to bleach her freckles away, but Marilla begs beyond all that is holy on earth that she doesn’t give her any ideas. It’s early days yet, and Anne Shirley is only 15. There’s still plenty of time for her to do further damage to herself before she gains some sense and loses her vanity.

It’s a lamentable process, watching as Anne’s often wild and sprightly hair is clipped away in chunks, garnishing her oval face with tufts of ginger, fanning around her face in what could actually be considered cute, had Marilla not thought that only Anne could have ended up in this situation.

Anne perhaps thinks that ignoring the hair brushing past her arms, and pooling on the floor, near the feet of the chair, is a good way to try and remain sane.

It’s her own fault – for thinking she can change the unchanging. Maybe it should be a lesson learned, but then – her life is one made to be sculpted on her failures, so far as she is concerned, and thus far, it’s been the case. Her loss of hair is just another in a long list of things she’s learned of the hard way. It’s a sharp reminder that her vanity could quite literally be the death of her. Beauty isn’t everything, if anything at all, Marilla tells her, and Anne sniffs in agreement, trying in vain to hold back her tears.

How can she face this world like this?

She’s only just managed to slip into order within school – she’s finally no longer an outcast, albeit how she strives never to be a replica of anyone. Her need for individuality contradicts her desire to be like everyone else, so she’s never entirely sure what she’s looking for. Possibly an island, where she can be left alone, would be good.

It doesn’t end there.

The humiliation of losing most of your hair through your own stupidity might seem bad enough, but Anne can think of worse.

Most notably, in the form of Gilbert Blythe.

Her sixth mistake was ever thinking that black hair was achieved quite so easily, but perhaps ever writing to Gilbert in the first place was her seventh one.

“There’s no gold,”

“I – I know,” he smirks at her, as if this seems entirely obvious. Of course he’s heard.

“That’s not why I’m here,”

She stares at him open-mouthed, but only because she’s now in the process of looking at him properly, like the light has finally shed itself on his face.

He’s grown up, for sure. As much as an 17 year old can look, she supposes. His hair is still as dark and as curly; his mouth has not lost that queer little smirk that only he can seem to perfect, reflecting both amusement and sincerity; his eyes are far from losing their spark.

But he is taller, with broader shoulders and a voice deeper than she recalls, his gaze flicking across her, assessing her up and down. He seems relieved that he can see her.

“It’s really good to see you,”

There’s an audible gasp that flits around the room, and it makes her throat turn suddenly dry, because –

Actually, she doesn’t know.

What’s going _on_ with her?

~          ~          ~

She can’t slow down.

She suddenly knows everything about herself – about love, about the world, about things that she never knew could exist in the world she believed was real.

Anne has become more like herself than she has in years.

She is attracted to both genders, and she knows this because Aunt Josephine has allowed her to discover it.

It’s a curious realization – like she’s known all along, but has only – finally – come to admit what felt so strange about some things.

Love is too diverse to be contained in boxes, and it makes her heart soar to consider that she not be confined ever again if she so chooses.

Freedom is truly her prize for having weathered cruelty, because it makes her lungs feel full and her heart feel warm. She has waited too long to let this go now.

Anne Shirley is running into a world only content with walking, but she doesn’t care.

She will make her mark upon this world, and will be like golden-orange butterflies in June. She will shine in the sun and dance among the flowers, and she will be herself no matter the odds against her. She has lived by the darkness too long to excuse herself from the sunshine any longer.

Gilbert remains, but only because he chooses to. Bash is adamant that his head is not quite as intelligent as everyone else believes, because the Trinidadian knows a thing or two about what denial looks like. It makes him smirk with merciless laughter every time Gilbert insists that the romantical tendencies of Anne Shirley are not inclined towards him. They never have been.

If ever he dies before his time, his epitaph will read: “Never Made a Bloody Move.”

Nonetheless, Gilbert finds himself gravitating towards Anne in a way that he can only describe as shameful, because her boyish haircut and ever present sharpness only prove as further illustrations as to why he is so helplessly head over heels for her, even as the two of them move in their own circles with their own problems and goals. Anne is off to become an author someday, a teacher as her next best guess; Gilbert suddenly realizes a doctor is all he has ever aspired too.

It is a realization that makes them both startle in the other’s presence, because it means they’re seeing purpose and strength in the other that was so lacking when he pulled on her braids for vain and idiotic attention.

Now, they are adults more than the ones who wear the title, and the both look for each other in crowds, once again enamoured by the idea that the competition continues despite their year of distance.

Apparently, a sea and a half does nothing to dull their spirit.

It makes itself particularly known when Gilbert refuses to back down on his own pride; a magnificent display of guts and truth, his book in hand as his eyebrow tilts in triumph:

“And I managed to learn that with no extra time from you,”

He looks positively infuriated by the teacher’s lack of respect for his pursuit of academic success, but the sarcastic edge to his words serves to dictate him as a man rather than a boy. Anne can see it from a mile off. His shirt sleeves are rolled up, nimble, pianist fingers poised over the pages of his book, but the scathing look he sends in Mr Phillips’ direction would be enough to leave scorch marks without ever striking a match. He is officially fed up with the lack of enthusiasm, and it shows.

He is the adult here, and Anne realizes that the Gilbert Blythe she knows is gone.

Sad and handsome?

More like striking and sharp-tongued.

 

Anne believes – perhaps – her eighth mistake is this:

 

Ever believing that Gilbert Blythe was a waste of space.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reviews and kudos appreciated, as always!


	3. Part Three: A Humiliation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The response to this little fic has been phenomenal - I'm so happy that so many people have enjoyed it so far! It's a great feeling. 
> 
> This chapter takes its literary liberties for sure, so hopefully that change in pace won't be too drastic - I actually really loved writing this chapter, so tell me what you think! 
> 
> Also, as a side note: Anne Shirley has become one of my favourite characters ever, so you can bet I'm holding out for a definitive third season of Anne with an 'E'. Make it happen, Netflix!

Anne firmly believes that she’s her own person.

And people who are their own person do things when it pleases them. That’s how it’s always been.

So, of course, one day in December, a year down the road, and Anne finds herself in a situation not unlike ones she’s had in her nightmares.

Anne knows herself that she is a stubborn, wily, proud and feisty individual – it is not uncommon knowledge, to either her or the rest of Avonlea. It’s a trait that seems inherent to her – to find herself in trouble whilst others look on in horror, and to then find herself with the none-too-dirty (or shameful) consequences of her actions.

But it hasn’t deterred her courage yet, so maybe it never will.

It’s a frosty morning, made colder by the heaps of packed snow coating the ground again, like it does every year. The chills are worming their way into Anne’s bones, the cold air turning her cheeks and nose red, lips chapped and hair forever catching in her lashes. It’s a time of year that lends itself to bitterness and illness alike, but Anne ignores all of this.

The winter is cool, yes, but beautifully still and frozen in time. It is a season awaiting for time to speed up again; it waits for everything, pauses for all. Winter contemplates, and Anne thinks that’s more beautiful than everything.  

But the stillness does not last long, because the present has something other than good fortune in store for Anne. That is always the way.

It’s a dare – and a stupid one – but Anne can’t help it. Josie Pye trying to desperately one-up her has become tiresome and predictable, but it doesn’t stop her from accepting the bait anymore or less than last time.

“As if _Anne Shirley_ could manage to be _graceful_ ,” she sneers one day, amid conversation about how best to walk as a lady. The concept has never really favoured Anne’s interest or intrigue – being a lady sounds positively dull and quite well-equipped to somebody who detests climbing trees and jumping into streams (which is not her), and yet it still has an allure she cannot fathom. She supposes it’s the idea that she could, in reality, become somebody like Princess Cordelia, but it’s also a frightful concept too. She will lose her childishness and opportunity to be curious and investigative by society’s rules, rather than her own. To be a lady, she must sacrifice _herself_ , and that sounds worse than anything.

“You don’t know anything about me!” Anne snaps in return, as they sit huddled inside the classroom, the warmth of the stove a bleak attempt to scare off the winter’s bite.

“I know well enough that an orphan girl can’t very well be _graceful_. _That’s_ reserved for girls born _into_ society,”

It’s nonsense, Anne knows. Her birth right is being _human_ , not well-off. And grace and poise are things that can be learned, not bred.

“I can be graceful! I can be graceful whenever I choose!”

“Then prove it.” The point-blank tone of Josie’s reply seems at odds with the look in her eyes. There is a jealousy and a daring streak in her that Anne thinks almost wonderful, had it not been so cruelly-intentioned. Josie is more than a bully, she knows – she is a girl bred to believe cruelty will benefit her, to save her from pain and stop her from being vulnerable, but it is a harsh price to pay. To be cruel is to be alone – and Anne wonders when she might see Josie realize this herself.

But for now, the risk is too great. If she can’t prove Josie Pye wrong, then she proves herself wrong, and her right.

That’s simply unbearable to think about.

And so Anne finds herself trudging out to the snow, a hard and unforgiving surface underneath her feet. No doubt any landing in it could end in tragedy.

Most likely to her.

Diana comes to her side, tugging her arm with that alarmed and panicked look in her eyes that tells of both her experience with misconduct and the wounds it can inflict. Diana knows Anne’s ferocity is a beast untamed, and she also knows that it has damaged her before.

“Anne, enough! Don’t be stupid! You can’t do this! Think of what will happen if you fall -!”

“Diana, I’ve walked planks before –“

“This isn’t a plank, Anne!” Anne looks towards her, and notices something in her friend she neglected to see beforehand. The both of them have grown in the year or so since Gilbert returned, and it shows in both their faces. Diana has become slender and a whip of a thing, her features both proud and feminine, and her eyes are a fierce, delightful brown that shine in equal determination and joy. She is a young woman already made capable by nature, but she is spirited, and that is just Diana being herself. Anne has already told her that her name derives from the Ancient Roman Goddess for Hunting – Artemis to the unlearned – and it shows. To hunt for real joy. That is Diana’s purpose. Not just for herself, but also for others.

“You could do serious harm to yourself! For _once_ in your life, just _think_!”

It’s a plea worthy of her concern for her friend, but Anne’s anger is too riled to be calmed now.

“I already have. I have to do this.”

And that is that.

Wrangling her arm free of Diana’s vice-like grip, Anne turns to survey the schoolhouse’s roof, a slight lump forming in the pit of her stomach, making her feel suddenly off kilter. She had no fear of heights – trees are not unlike this, and much higher for it too – but something about trees feels safe. Branches curling all around her, tucking her into themselves. Nature was fierce but a comfort. It loved those who loved it.

The schoolhouse is open, and precarious. One long beam of walkable space along its top, with a lot of room for error. The sun is harsh and low on her eyes, the snow glinting in the early afternoon sunshine – a lunchtime that has quickly escalated to something out of an adventure book.

_Walk the schoolhouse roof._

Like having a gauntlet thrown to her feet.

Anne breathes out once, beginning her ascent. She can hear the shouts of Ruby and Diana in the background, begging and yelling at her to come down, to stop being so foolish, but she’s got to concentrate. One misstep and it’ll be over before she’s even tried.

The snow might break her fall, regardless, but she doesn’t want to entertain it.

This is not a tree. There’ll be nothing to grip onto except hope.

It’s a thought that sends a quake to her knees, her nerves beginning a ravenous journey through her courage.

It’s one leg up, one handhold higher, and Anne soon finds herself balanced on the tiled roof, boots slipping against the iced slates, her heart hammering in her chest as she spreads her arms wide, an effort to maintain balance as she clambers with a spectacular lack of grace, gripping the main roof beam with jittering fingers. The haul up onto the top allows her to sit on it, grasping the chimney with a hand as the other grips the beam she’s sitting on. A swimming glance down to Josie shows the girl’s face to have blanched in the time it took to get herself up here, but it doesn’t stop her next retort.

“I said _walk_ it, dummy, not sit on it. Go through with it.”

Her voice doesn’t sound so assured and confident now. Just weak. Strangled. Like the height is making her nauseous as well.

Anne breathes out, a whimper escaping her. She’s not afraid of heights, at all, but something about the open air is making her feel insecure. Quite possibly for good reason.

She turns on her feet, gripping the beam with both hands, knees shaking with the effort, and slowly rises upwards, arms flying outwards as she retains balance again. The wind cuts her face to bits, hat wriggling from her hair as strands blow into her face.

She begins walking.

There’s a rhythm to it, for sure. A certain lilt to her step that helps her keep her mind blank. But it’s terrifying all the same. The hush over the people watching below is palpable, and Anne’s feet feel awkward and uncomfortable in her boots. Like they suddenly don’t fit anymore.

She can spot the thicket of trees of the forest, dusted in snow like icing sugar, miles away, and the blanket of snow coating the land with an effortless, untouched beauty, glistening in the bright, low sun. It’s a place stilled from life.

“It’s beautiful up here!” Anne calls down, a little more at ease. A few steps and she’ll make it to the edge, and then she can get down.

Josie looks more than a little miffed, but nonetheless pale.

A few more steps. A few more… steps –

“Anne?!”

The voice startles her, and she whirls around in time to see a dark figure emerging through the crowd, his face turned to the roof in both panic and perhaps awe at just how dangerous she’s being.

It’s all it takes for her foot to slip.

She feels the slates giving out under her, and in her panic, grabs for the nearest hold – the beam. Her hands scream at the impact of the wood cutting into her fingers and palms, but she can’t hold on. She’s tumbling over herself, scarf getting caught in her mouth, and then she feels it – the crack of bone as her ankle twists and catches on the edge of the roof, and then she’s plummeting to the ground, her body slapping to the snow with a _wumpf_ , and she lies still, pulling the wool out of her mouth.

And then she feels the pain.

It’s an effort not to stare, goggle-eyed, at her ankle. The bone has snapped clean in half, protruding out of her ankle as a sharp, cream staff, the blood pooling into the snow. It makes her feel sick just looking at it. Her right leg is even sitting at an odd angle, in contrast to the left, which seems to be functioning just fine. She turns and vomits into the snow, the bile burning at her throat as it lands in the snow, making a scene of horror around her. Why does vomit always look like she’s eaten carrots? She whimpers again, trying to hold herself up with her arms, but they’re shaking so hard, it’s an effort not to fall back into the snow.

Anne can’t help but let loose a strangled cry, feeling the pain rip up her limb like electrodes, puncturing every nerve with a hot and searing agony that makes her want to curl up and die right there. She can hear the girls screaming, Diana crying out her name along with Ruby, and then –

“Get out of the way! MOVE!”

Anne can only helplessly look at the limb she has ruined - trying to be brave - and it makes her anger fume as she sees Gilbert come into view above her, shoving his tartan fleece’s sleeves up as he takes off his gloves, dumping them in the snow. Anne takes a small moment to appreciate how his hands have changed – laced with vein and lean muscle that the spindly Gilbert of before had never possessed, taking her under her arms as he shifts her back into him.

“You’re good, you’re good,” he mutters, taking his cap off and placing it in her hands, allowing the scratchy woollen cap to hibernate in amongst her trembling fingers.

 _Christ_ , the pain is unbearable. The bloodied snow is worse to look at – more like her heart has been sliced in two and left to bleed dry. It’s an unpleasant reminder that her actions have their consequences – a lesson she still seems incapable of learning.

“I’m anything but _good_ , Gilbert Blythe!” she seethes at him through gritted teeth, trying to focus her energy on something other than screaming.

He looks to her then, his dark, curled hair already dusted with newly falling snow, face as pale as the white coating the ground, and he smiles at her; a tender and warm little tug of the lips that makes her want to punch and kiss him simultaneously. If Gilbert Blythe was ever to know what he’s managing to do to her these days, it’ll be a crime not worth standing trial for. Just hang her and have done with it if it ever happens.

“Easy,” he soothes, like calming a horse. She’s not entirely sure she’s grateful for that treatment.

His hands ghost over her ankle, heat radiating from his palm as Diana thumps down onto her knees in the snow beside her, her face a picture of pure terror.

“Anne! What have you _done_?! You _idiot_!” She doesn’t mask her anger at all. Anne winces.

“I’m _sorry_ ,” she chokes out.

Her ninth mistake was ever listening to Josie Pye – or perhaps she made that mistake a long time ago, and is only learning about it now.

Gilbert’s voice tenses as he looks over at her, his mouth and brow a grim line as a muscle in his jaw twitches.

“What were you _thinking_ , Anne?” It’s enough to make her fury rise again; how _dare_ he question her?!

“I _had_ to!”

“ _No_ , you _didn’t_!”

“ _Yes_ , I did! Otherwise -”

“Otherwise _what_?!”

Despite how gentle he’s being with her leg, shifting it ever so slightly to get a better look at the bone, his tone is fierce and hurt. He’s angry _for_ her, and angry _at_ her. An unlikely combination, but there’s Gilbert Blythe for you.

“Jesus _Christ_ , Anne – _every_ time,”

 Anne can’t help but see how worried he is for her – but this isn’t his place. He knows nothing of what it’s like to live constantly as the butt of other people’s jokes. He’s lived a life, most decidedly, as the popular favourite of the classroom. Proving himself has never been a necessity, just a choice. Anne knows different.

She always _has_ done.

“I don’t need your help, Gilbert! I’m fine!”

His withering look is punctured with disdain – an expression not uncommon when facing Anne. Her ferocity and determination makes her a fire that blazes, and one that ought not to be trifled with (ever), but it also makes her foolish, and it frustrates the hell out of him.

“With a bone sticking out of you? Sure thing,”

He smirks the tiniest bit, and it makes him look devilish and handsome and also really cocky. Anne fumes at him – stupid Gilbert.

He glances at her ankle again, wrapping a hand underneath her leg as he surveys the injury. He bites his lip.

“I’ll need to bind it,” he looks at the crowd, hovering on the sidelines without a clue as to how to proceed. The shock seems to have rippled out. Josie stands behind the other girls, but her expression is clear enough to decipher. Horror, mixed with the smallest vial of pleasure at the scene. Pleasure in her pain.

Anne will tackle her to the ground one of these days.

“Someone get Miss Stacy! Ruby,” he turns to her friend, whose flicking her gaze between Anne’s ankle and him with a feverish look on her face. The nausea is apparently caused by both things.

“I need you to get a piece of wood – long and thin, if you can. Can you do that?” His soft tone is for Ruby’s benefit, but the girl steels instantly. Her friend needs help. Her crush on Gilbert can wait.

One nod and she’s off, leaving Anne to direct her fury on Gilbert again.

“Have I ruined my leg for life, then?”

“Scathing,” he retorts, brushing his hair back as he looks to the blood in the snow, wincing a little at the deep, crimson tint. It looks violent and angry, and perhaps that is a good metaphor for Anne. But it’s _her_ blood – and she’s lost a lot more than he’d like.

“How do you feel? Dizzy? Nauseous?” His concern has returned, softening his tone to a husky and calmed tenor, inching closer as he lets her lean against him, Diana holding her hand and smoothing back her hair with gloved fingers. It’s enough to keep her from shivering with the shock.

“What do you think?”

He frowns. It makes his eyes flash with temper, but he quells it. Now is not the time.

“You’re awfully huffy for someone with a broken ankle,”

Anne chokes back a cry, more of that searing pain lacing up her leg, and she whimpers. Gilbert’s face falls.

“Sorry - sorry,” he murmurs, and it assuages her anger at him. A little.

“Dizzy,” she admits, and he nods in agreement, looking into the distance as Ruby comes hurtling through the snow, blonde curls whipping backward as she struggles through the deep shift.

“That’s normal. You’ve lost a _lot_ of blood,” Anne forces herself to breathe at the mention of the bloodied snow she can see just past his kneeling figure.

“Any other injuries I should know about while we’re here?” It’s an attempt at lightening the mood, and Anne manages a weak smile, fisting her hands in his cap. The material feels nice against her raw fingers, now numb from the cold, and Gilbert seems to notice. He blinks, casting a look up and down her as his lashes curl on his cheeks. He looks shy. It suits him.

“Nope,” she says, and he flicks her a smile. A tentative hand reaches for her, and she obliges him. His fingers lace into her own – deft and calloused, but warm and strong. Hands that promise to keep her safe.

“You’re going to be fine,” he tells her, as Diana smooths her hair back again.

She believes him.

~          ~          ~

 

Anne hates having to stay indoors. It’s a suffocation on both her spirit and her curiosity, but there’s nothing to be done about it.

Her ankle’s done for, to put it lightly, and it’ll take a whole month or more before it’s in any fit shape to function again. So, put shortly, she’ll be bedridden for Christmas.

 _Put lightly_ , Anne is in a foul mood. She wants to hurl everything she owns at the wall, but the rather sarcastic voice in her head reminds her that she chose to walk the schoolhouse roof, so whose fault is it really?

She tries to ignore that voice as best as she can, but it’s a work in progress.

The setting of the bone had been an exercise in not ripping the surgeon’s head off, so painful had the entire ordeal been. Shortly after her verbal spar with Gilbert, the doctor had been sent for and Gilbert had half lifted her, half heaved her into his arms and taken her the schoolhouse, where she’d had to wait whilst the doctor had made his way. In that time, Gilbert had tried his best to bind and disinfect the entire ankle, and had made a fairly good job of it. Well – a good enough job that she hadn’t started up another argument with him.

But now, stranded in her bed with her ankle propped up, and having been this way for more than two weeks, her frustration is rising to peak levels, and Anne thinks it might only be a few more days before she gives up and just forces her ankle to cooperate with her.

“Anne!” Marilla’s voice is a chime through the silence of Green Gables, save for the faint closing of the door and the rattle of doorknob as people come and go, but without her eyes to actually see any of it.

“Yes, Marilla?” She calls back, slapping her book down on the covers. Her ankle twinges, despite the wooden splint and the multiple rolls of bandage that now envelop the entirety of her lower leg. She looks like a partially completed mummy from those horrendous and morbidly fantastical tales of Ancient Egypt – of pharaohs being mummified and locked away inside their pyramids, to rest for all eternity –

“You have a visitor!”

Anne perks up a little – maybe Diana has finally been allowed to come and see her. It’s no surprise that Anne’s spectacular disaster has meant little in change within school. Despite her valiant efforts, Diana can only visit as often as her studies allow her, and all of them are having to contemplate further education. Coming to check up on her immobilized friend doesn’t exactly rank high in her mother’s priorities, no matter where it may fall in Diana’s.

The clomp of boots makes a gradual descent towards her room, and Anne sighs, flattening the page of her book. It’s Wuthering Heights – a gift from Aunt Josephine, who saw it unfit that Anne should go her entire bedridden period without something good to indulge in. If Aunt Josephine knows anything, it’s that a young girl like Anne – and particularly with such an inquiring mind – ought not to waste away in bed with nothing to keep her occupied. Stuck in bed for at least another week or two before she can begin hobbling around with her crutches, Anne knows that without books, she’d be losing her mind.

Marilla sweeps in through the door as she opens it, dark skirts flapping around the frame as she allows her visitor to enter.

Cap in hand, with a none too shabby dark coat and well polished boots, in walks Gilbert Blythe, looking like the picture of guilty innocence.

He knows perfectly well that by all accounts, he’s not who Anne wants to see, but the coy smirk on his face tells her he’s done so because it might just amuse him for a little while.

She scowls at him.

“Gilbert is here to see you. I’ll leave the door _open_.” Marilla’s raised eyebrow tells her that she doesn’t trust Anne to send him back downstairs in one piece, but she leaves without another word, the click of her heeled boots the only sign that she was ever there.

Gilbert looks at her, shedding his coat as he blinks at the room, taking in the basic furnishings and her propped up leg. He glances at the feathers and dried flowers on her vanity stand, then looks to the charm hung around the headboard of her bed.

This is most definitely Anne’s room. It overflows with an absurdity and purity that couldn’t be rivalled by any, her knick-knacks a testament to her sentiment and curious soul.

When he looks at her, her plain nightdress, blanket draped over her shoulders, with her red hair braided to the side, he thinks she perhaps looks different than what he would imagine someone with a broken ankle to look like. Her hair has significantly darkened since it grew back, now a few inches longer than before, and thicker than it was. Like hardship made it stronger. He supposes that goes for her too. Her freckles have paled with the winter, her lips reddened by the cold, but overall she looks more grown than the Anne Shirley he holds in his mind. She’s a curious thing to look at – not at all conventional in either her beauty or manner, but it somehow makes her shine where others dull in the harsh sunlight.

Her glare, however, is enough for him to keep up his guard. For now.

“Hey,” he says, and she merely rolls her eyes at him, flicking a page with disinterest as he produces something from behind his back – a branch of holly that has already blossomed its red berries. Anne’s smile drifts onto her face, and she offers a hand to him. He gives it to her, careful that the leaves don’t prick her hands, and she smiles softly at the scope of each leaf, tracing her finger around the berries. She lies it beside her, on top of the covers.

“Can I sit?”

She nods, smoothing her hand down the pages of her book again.

“What’cha reading?” It’s a sly question, because he knows that the subject of reading between them is one thorned with spite and ill-will. It’s been four years that they’ve known each other, and for nearly a whole year, he didn’t see her. It feels like time has never truly caught up with them – their relationship strains with the time, but hasn’t moved with familiarity. They’re still just Gilbert and Anne – separate entities, but very much tuned into the other, no matter how one of their duo loathes it.

“Wuthering Heights, if you must know,” her withering tone makes him smile with confidence.

“Ah. Sweeping romance to ail a broken limb?”

He is a wry and somewhat seductive creature, Anne thinks – but he doesn’t deserve such charms. He’s annoyance, a pain in her side –

“Hardly,” she snorts. It’s anything but.

“Oh?”

Anne tucks a stray hair behind her ear, licking her lips.

“It’s a revenge story – filled with _hate_ and _grief_ and _lust_ and -”

She pauses. Probably _not_ a story she wants to express to Gilbert.

“It’s just a story,” She finishes, but he looks wholly unconvinced. He’s taken a seat in the worn, wooden chair at her bedside, his dark eyes a reminder to her that his attractiveness has grown as he has. Gilbert is now eighteen, and the weight of his youth is on his back, but manhood is slowly but surely overtaking him. Whispers of strength are knotted into the tendons in his arms and hands, the sharp line of his jaw more defined than before. His dark hair has gotten even darker, if possible, and it curls with the cold, dusted with melting snow. His skin has paled with the chill, too, but it makes him look beautiful, like an icy prince in a snow kingdom. His sweater is a deep red, shirt collar poking out from underneath, and the richness of his clothes allow him to sink into a warmth and comfort that suits his character well.

Anne thinks him handsome. It’s a shock to her, alright, but few can deny it now. Gilbert Blythe has grown up, and he is more striking than ever.

Anne lets loose a breath, trying to compose the heat flooding to her face. By hell if she needs her blood vessels betraying her now.

He bites his lip in experimentation, fumbling for the items in his satchel that he’d stashed under the chair as he’d sat. From out of the bag comes a series of three novels, her notebook balanced on top. The tomes are heavy, dusty – like old books should be.

“What -?”

“School,” he replies, the confidence in his smirk making her scowl at him half-heartedly as she takes them from his pro-offered hand.

“Don’t want you falling behind, do we?”

“As if I would,” she gripes, but she pours over the books nonetheless. She keeps getting glimpses – into how Gilbert might be if she keels over and becomes his friend for real. The childhood fights and slate-smashing are over; they’re tentative with each other: sarcastic and playful and just teetering on the edge of something _far_ more complicated, but she doesn’t know that she has the courage to venture there. Not yet.

Certainly not with a broken ankle, anyway.

“It’s – payback, I guess. For when you helped me. When my father was -” his tone cracks a little, and the slight change in his expression makes Anne soften to him. She keeps forgetting that being an orphan is still fairly new ground underneath his feet – he has Bash, a man contented with both his married and social life, with two young children, but Bash is also a friend. A dear, loyal, compassionate friend. He’s helped him through, given him a shoulder to lean on and a voice to believe and trust in.

But he’s not his father.

He won’t shed the weight of that death for a time yet.

“Thank you,” she replies, and it’s sincere. Gilbert smiles in return, nodding to himself once as his gaze casts itself up and down her face again, lingering a little too wistfully on her mouth. She notices, and looks to the side.

Again, with that _complicated_ bit that’s waiting on the other side for her.

She takes another glance at him, watching him as he stares at his feet, hand absently pulling at the loop of the black, woolen scarf he has wound around his neck. He looks downcast, shy even, but he suddenly resembles the Roman sculptures Anne so longs to see for herself. Of contemplative, Greek heroes, mourning a loss of both love and will to fight, and lamenting their own humanity. He is the Perseus - the Apollo - of his own story, and it makes him more beautiful than she thought possible for an eighteen year old boy.

“I should – I should probably get going,” he says, standing up from the chair as he laughs inconsequentially. She taps her fingers on the topmost book’s cover in absent mind. Gilbert slowly redresses, stuffing the cap over his unruly curls and donning his coat again, reaching for his bag and gloves from underneath the chair.

“Thank you for coming,” Anne finds the comment just spill from her mouth, and the panicked tone, like she’s afraid of him leaving, makes her cringe. His look toward her is both amused and sincere. Grateful.

“May I take your hand?” His mockery of regal etiquette makes her stifle a laugh as she bites her lip.

“You _may_ , sir knight,”

He bows, taking her fingers in his own as he brings it to his mouth, pressing his lips on her knuckles. It’s a whisper of a kiss, barely a promise, but the brush of his mouth against her skin tingles with the warmth. She forgets how to breathe for two seconds.

He drops her hand gently, and the thread between them is cut again. He swallows then, clutching at the curls of hair at his nape as he sighs with laughter, nodding his head in goodbye.

He’s out the door before she can say anything else to him.

The lingering touch of his lips sends even more chills up her arm, as she replays the gaze of his dark eyes, searching her own, the whole time enraptured by her.

She thinks she might like him.

And not casually.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really like how I can now expand this into the romance we all know is coming, but I tell you - Lucas Jade Zumann's face features throughout like half of how I envision these things playing out. He's such a great choice for Gilbert, because he perfectly balances Amybeth McNulty's fiesty and easily angered Anne. And their acting gives me so much to work with, so again - if you haven't seen the series, make it a priority on a Friday Night with hot chocolate (or preferred beverage). 
> 
> It's also a good time to say disclaimer: I know Anne breaks her ankle in canon, but I've never read the books, so I took liberties (poorly or not, you decide.) 
> 
> Anyways, over and out, folks. Next chapter will be up asap.


	4. Part Four: A Scandal Amongst Women

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another day, another chapter! Had a lot of (painful) fun writing this, so hopefully the wait wasn't too long. I find I'm subverting my original plan quite a bit as I write each chapter, but I suppose it's an indication that the ideas are flowing freely. Hopefully the writing suggests as such. 
> 
> Our kids are growing up as the chapters go, but I still find that older teenage years do not equate with any less of a major bundle of mistakes and embarrassments. It's just how life is, I suppose. 
> 
> There will be more, proper, Sherbert (love the ship name!) stuff to come in future chapters, so be prepared to gawk on the sheer amounts of fluff I have planned. But I am aware of the fact that this is primarily a girls' lens through which the story is portrayed, so it's not all sunshine and daisies. It rarely is with Anne, but that's what makes her so compelling. 
> 
> Thanks again for the amazing support, and more chapters to come!!

If Anne thinks her days of collaboration with humiliation and torment are over, she is sorely wrong. Devastation and embarrassment seem never too far from her vicinity, and no matter what she does, she barrels headlong into them and goes too far to come back.

It takes another four weeks for her ankle to heal entirely, and even then, she finds that she walks like a stiff scarecrow for another two. It’s testament to the fact that her stupidity will bare down on her with a greater weight every time she indulges it, and in some form, Anne wonders what might befall her should she indulge it one time too many.

The bright and breezy landscapes of Avonlea make way for the spring, as life springs up through the quickly thawing snow, and Anne once again finds herself embroiled within her imagination, wishing upon floating leaves and shooting stars and flower petals, her whole world spinning and laughing along with her as she revels in nature and its whimsical, fierce, unrelenting ways.

She is the soil beneath her feet, the blossoms on the trees, the grass between her toes. The sand on the beach, and the waves crashing onto the rocks. She has become a young woman both in control and free to run wild. Perhaps that’s why Avonlea can never seem to know what to make of her: she’s too complicated to consider being an easy story to tell.

But there are some things Anne can’t control, that bite her whenever she thinks they’re gone and dealt with. It’s a humiliation, and a revelation: she can try, but that’s about it.

School continues to be a simultaneous drag and wonderment, depending on how things proceed. Miss Stacy is an invigorating and enthusiastic teacher, to be sure, but Anne’s still learning her graces; still just sixteen, and much the same as she was at fourteen, and that means that her capacity to always say the wrong thing regardless of time or place follows her still. She’s trying to tame said ability, but it doesn’t seem to be working.

Nevertheless, Anne remains an absolute ace at making herself look like a fool, when she in fact a star brighter than most, in the sky everyone looks up at, but nothing is in her favour today. Nothing at all.

It all starts off fairly simple – sitting in class with her chalk scraping across her slate, notebook lying open in front of her as she wilfully tries to keep her stray hairs out of her face. She has since upgraded to wearing her hair out around her face, trying to acentuate any assortment of features that might pass as acceptable. Although she has since disregarded her earlier obsession with beauty, the braids were beginning to look twee on a girl of sixteen years old. Frankly, they were comfortable, but society has little time for women and comfort in the same room together. It’s a pity Anne can’t punch every man in the nose who says any different.

“Anne? Would you like to recite the next poem for us?” Miss Stacy has become an accomodating teacher, willing to exercise Anne’s spirit to the finest degree. It’s a rare gift that Mr Phillips would never have even thought to consider – having someone who encourages her but keeps her right is something she had only dreamed of in the past. Anne gets to her feet, feeling a little heavy on her legs. The blood feels weighty, spiralling through her veins. She swallows, regardless, and begins.

It’s only as she gets through the first verse that something starts to feel wrong. It’s one of those moments where you think you’ve suddenly neglected to spot something that is obvious to everyone else present. It starts as a tremor in her hands, and then a coil in her stomach. She falters on the last word.

“All strange wonders that – befell thee…” She pauses, staring down at the page as she frantically tries to place her finger on what exactly feels off. Is she sick? It feels like she might throw up, but the pain in her abodomen feels less like a case of bad breakfast choice and more like –

_Oh no._

The realization hits her as the book suddenly gains a few tons of weight in her hands, her face feeling hot and her knees trembling underneath her.

 _Simpering, beautiful Princess Cordelia!_ the orphan girls chime inside her head, her mind casting back into the darkened dorm room. _No one will_ ever _want you._

The gasps and shrieks of everyone in the room makes her feel even more threatened and exposed, like an animal thrown to the hunger of starving men. There’s little she can do exept look at Diana, whose face has contorted to one of major sympathy and dismay at Anne’s misfortune. She grabs her hand.

“What is it? What’s wrong with me?!” She hisses at her, bottom lip trembling. Diana merely blinks and bites her lip. Even she doesn’t know how to remedy the situation. The boys at the back of the class are hollering back at her, crude remarks that Miss Stacy instantly quietens, her face thunderous. They relent, but only slightly.

The burning all over Anne’s body hasn’t ceased, and when she places her book down on the table and hauls her dress’s skirt around to her viewpoint, she pales and freezes at the crimson-brown stain spreading out across the back, like a violent disease set on her by the undead.

Not this _again_.

Her whimper of despair is heard by Miss Stacy, who rushes to her side, taking one look at her ruined frock and grimacing in retort.

“Class, quiet down! That is an _instruction_! Continue your reading!” It’s a strict renunciation of all the leering shouts the boys have thrown her way, but some of them look a little horrified by what’s happened. The likelihood is that they don’t know exactly _what’s_ happening – everything surronding periods is a taboo in the strictest form – and _yet_ –

It’s not that which bothers Anne most. It’s more to do with how no one seems at all sympathetic with her, save Diana and Miss Stacy.

Anne learned a long time ago that getting flustered over such a thing was a waste of her time – it was going to happen no matter what she did. But now that’s it’s physically humiliated her, it’s turned into a horrendous memento for the future, where people will distinctly remember how crudely she bled through her underthings without even a notice in advance. And they’ll laugh, and jeer, and make merry about her misgivings, and never once be empathetic to the sheer horror and discomfort and embarrassment that she suffered well into her late teens. They’ll never care, because they never do.

The tears running down her cheeks are just her panic alarm not knowing what to do with itself – she’s angry in a wet and mixed up way; furious, but unable to bare the sounds of the classroom. They all seemed stunned into horror by the display.

Diana grips her hand as she stays in her spot, Miss Stacy’s softened questions deaf to her ears. She can’t concentrate on anything. Just the sticky feeling of the dress clinging to her bloomers, and the feel of it running down her legs.

This _can’t_ be happening. _It just can’t be._

She rips her hand free of Diana’s as she flees from the classroom, not for the second time in her long history of dramatic exits, and the sharp sting of cool, spring air on her cheeks does little to soothe her broken and lamentable soul as she sprints down the lane, towards the only place she knows she can be at peace. The forest.

 

Meanwhile, the schoolhouse is still in uproar from Anne’s departure, and Diana sits by herself, hands in her lap as Miss Stacy tries to wrangle some sort of explanation out of her.

“Did she know?” she asks quietly, hands on hips in a businees-like manner, amid the mounting conversation in the room. Diana shakes her head – Anne’s expression was not the one of someone already acquainted with any schedule of when it might arrive. It was just bad luck.

It seems to be the case with her a worrying amount.

Miss Stacy’s face has paled at the aspect, her hands now shoved in the pockets of her bell-bottomed trousers, paisley blouse not entirely at odds with her youthful and somewhat wisened face. She’s young and old in one person, and yet her empathy knows no bounds. Her heart aches for Anne, because she has heard enough from Marilla to know that she has not been a girl well accustomed to luxury. She’s known hardship more than she can imagine or piece together. This is just another mark on her card, and made so unfairly.

“Where might she have gone?”

Diana stands, brushing back a curl of hair from her face.

“I don’t know, Miss Stacy. Anne isn’t a - _predictable_ person,”

“I have to say I disagree,” the line of Miss Stacy’s mouth is sorrowfully amused. Anne is predictable alright – predictably wacky and spirited. But also predictably vehement and tempestuous too.

And predictably wounded.

A shadow crosses over Diana’s shoulder, only to find Gilbert Blythe standing beside her, his shirt sleeves pushed up and hands in his pockets, striped braces pulled taut over broad shoulders. His hair is mussed, his eyes concerned and tired. He worries away his bottom lip like Anne does – a habit inspired by her, Diana believes.

“Where’s Anne?” It’s not merely a question; the pain is evident in his voice, strangling the syallables so that he sounds simultaneously abused and frustrated.

“We don’t know,” Diana reiterates, gripping the tabletop as she closes her eyes. There are times when she feels like she’s not doing enough to help out – Anne has been a dearer friend to her than any, and it makes for stiff competition. She knows Anne has suffered – she has too. But the wrath of having done nothing, of having _said_ nothing, rise from her gut like a snake to its prey.

She knows she could’ve done more.

“Do you think she’ll be OK?” The chime of Ruby Gillis into the conversation startles Gilbert, but what startles him more is how diligently she doesn’t look at him. She’d grown in the months that he’d returned, but nowadays, she seems far more comfortable in her own skin than her mother would probably wish. But she hasn’t cared in a long time.

“I should dearly hope so, Ruby.” Miss Stacy sounds unsure.

Gilbert lowers his head, fisting his hands in the scratchy cotton of his trouser pockets. It’s enough to know that what he saw is no infrequent occurrence – if training to be a doctor means anything, it’s becoming well accustomed to the traits of both sexes, but it’s more like deep-rooted anger at how Anne is being treated even yet, regardless of how she might triumph throughout her time in Avonlea.

“I’m going to look for her,” he states, raising his head with a defiance and unclouded determination in his frown. Diana snaps.

“Well, if you think you’re going anywhere I’m coming with you,” Her steely eyes line up with his as she stands, rising to the same height as him with little to no effort. No one saw Diana being a tall person by any means, but sometimes genes work in funny ways.

Gilbert looks on her with a strained curiosity.

“You can’t be serious,”

“I’m being entirely serious.”

He looks at her properly, seeing something of a rebellion against any conventions her mother has tried to force upon her, just to let her trail through life be one without judgement, but Diana is far past that. Anne makes it too difficult to return to notions of conformity. She makes ‘normal’ supremely boring.

Gilbert shrugs. There’s nothing for it, then.

So he, Diana and Ruby set out to find her, leaving the school house door open after them.

To hell with conformity.

Their friend needs them.

~          ~          ~

It’s a fair trek through Avonlea’s thriving wildlife as the three teenagers search for Anne, every bush and branch upturned to try and find her. They even check in with Green Gables – and are met with Marilla and Matthew, both beside themselves with worry when they explain the situation. It takes a fair time to convince Marilla to stay put and carry on with her work, because the woman has grown unbearably fond of Anne – so much so that any ounce of harm or misconduct imposed upon her serves as enough of an excuse to demand recompence. Marilla’s heart has thawed considerably, and her compassion makes her more alive than most.

They continue to search for her, the day drawing on as they trample through the undergrowth of the forest, the trees now singing with every bird and insect that they can recall the name of. It makes for a soothing atmosphere, but the worry gnaws away at all of them. Anne’s a fiesty individual – but she’s also delicate, and vulnerable, and liable to fling herself into danger to try and forget her sorrows, in some rendition of a fantasy tale she feels at liberty to imitate. Her age has not hindered her excessive and sprawling imagination, but it makes her vulnerable and hated by the world, because she imagines things could be better, or different from how they are, and it means that Anne is lost in a wilderness that no one wants to inhabit with her, even just to keep her company.

She’s used to being on her own, so she’ll go somewhere where she can be just that.

On their last trudge through the woods, the spring chill entering their bones as the afternoon begins to seep into the evening, Gilbert pauses, Diana and Ruby halting as he looks back from where they came.

“We can’t just keep wandering aimlessly. She has to be _somewhere_.” The frustration in his voice is evidence enough that this whole ordeal has eaten into him, seen in the way he bites the inside of his cheek and runs a worrisome hand through his hair, looking to the trees and his feet as he strokes the side of his cheek, lost in his thoughts. Diana and Ruby exchange a glance – Ruby knows fair well that his fondness for Anne is above anything she ever felt for him, so she’s boxed away her crush for good. Now, all she sees is a dear friend, worthy of a happiness she can’t provide him.

“Gilbert, we’ll find her. I promise. How about you go back and we’ll continue on? We’re bound to find her if we split up,”

His gaze flicks to her, as dark and sincere as she’s always known it to be.

“Ruby, are you sure?”

A blonde eyebrow rises in retort, glaring at him like he’s just proclaimed to have seen aliens in the sky. Considering how the most recent publications have gone, Ruby doesn’t wish to consider that Martians may yet invade. But it’s a subject for another day.

“Of _course_ I’m sure. _Go_ ,” It’s a command, and Gilbert obliges her, flicking her a consolitary smile that makes her sigh in his wake.

“As if I can’t _see_ he’s fretting his pants off,” Ruby comments, rolling her eyes as Diana barks out a laugh. Ruby has become something of an independent – completely removed from the girl she was years ago. She’s still easily frightened and most definitely one to vie for affection, but she’s different from before. She doesn’t _need_ people to like her the way she once did. She’s grown.

“We’ll keep looking through here. I have a feeling Anne will have gone to somewhere – familiar,” Diana sighs on the last word, glancing down at Ruby. The message is clear.

She’s gone to their story house.

~          ~          ~

Anne huddles into herself, feeling the pounding of her heart against her ribs as she shrinks into the makeshift hut that still stands, despite the destruction it has suffered in the past. They rebuilt it only partially before giving up, realizing it was a part of their life that ought not to be reconstructed. Sometimes, things were best left untouched.

It’s a tough reminder to her that her tenth mistake – probably the worst of them yet – was ever believing life was going to be easy. Anne knows that things will always happen – it’s the very nature of life itself for things to go amiss when one least expects it, but it makes the wound sting as much as it would, regardless of this knowledge or not.

She can still feel the blood leaking through her under things, and its making her feel both highly uncomfortable, and –

 _Unclean_.

It’s a word that has its connotations alright, but she’s lucky enough not to have had such words thrown back at her. Bash knows all too well that people can be as horrible as they appear, or worse, more horrible than they would, but it does little to dull the ache. Bash has a life with Mary – the both of them equals in a marriage that can only be described as rambunctious and passionate and companionable. Something Anne knows, in her heart, she can never aspire to have. The society she resides in today disregards her intelligence and curiosity, because it doesn’t fit the role she’s supposed to fulfil. It’s a dagger to her heart – another reminder that she can never be enough, not for anybody. Never the perfect student, or the perfect woman, or the perfect friend, or perfect wife.

Although, maybe she doesn’t care if she’s perfect. Maybe she just cares about being wanted.

Marilla and Matthew love her – that much she does know. Their familial love is incomparable to anything she’ll _ever_ feel. Too many people brush off the importance of such things – they’ll love her regardless of what she’ll do, or how she’ll mess up. They’ll love her through every mistake and fall and scrape on her knee.

Diana and Ruby and Tillie and Jerry – her friends are something of an anchor, to keep her rooted in the world she inhabits. They’ll love her because she’s wacky and strange and powerful and brave. They’ll love her because she’s their friend, and that’s what friends are for.

But Gilbert –

She can’t hope for anything. She might have decided that he means a little more to her than either a friend or a rival, but the ache of knowing that nothing could ever come of such a liking is a little too rough on her heart. It’s not worth thinking about.

She curls up again, feeling her stomach clench with the oncoming torrent of pain she’s learned to expect. She just can’t believe that her own body has managed to betray her again – it feels too much like a prophecy, dooming her to never be accepted by all. She’ll be remembered from now on as the girl who bled through her underwear – and who ran from the very people she’d thought she could trust.

The soil curves with her body, the lone snowdrops drooping their heads in sorrow for her, as her tears wet the ground and the wind whispers to her through the boards of the house, the forest an endless castle of nature’s own creation. It sings and calls and hushes her to sleep, for she is very much its daughter, and its keeper. She’s never been anything else.

“Anne?”

Diana and Ruby’s voices chime through the silence as Anne turns her head slightly, so she can see them. They rush to her side, belted slates thudding into the ground as they place warmed hands on her shoulders, brushing her hair from her eyes.

“Anne, what on earth are you doing here?” Diana sounds only vaguely stricken with concern, if not a little miffed that she’s still managing to find places to cry on her own.

“Go away, Diana! Don’t look at me!”

“Anne, don’t be so silly -”

“I’m not being silly, Diana! I can’t be seen by _anyone_ or anything ever _again_! Just leave me alone!”

Diana sits back on her honkers, shoulders sagging with defeat. Her glance to Ruby is withering. This is just how Anne deals with things, but there’s a time and a place.

“You can’t very well stay out here, but,” Diana adopts a tone not unlike her mother’s – chastising and frankly irritated. It does little to change Anne’s mind.

“I’ll stay here if I very well please,”

“Anne, why would you want to stay here? It’s freezing!” Ruby’s interjection verges on naïve, but there’s a grumpy note to her voice that indicates a certain disgruntlement, at the fact that Anne _still_ seems to believe that one mishap is going to sever their friendship. It serves to hark back to the trauma they all know she has suffered. It marks her very soul, but to what extent, they may never know.

“I can and I will,” Anne huffs into the soil again, her cheeks stiffened with tears, hair tickling her brow.

“Brave words,”

The startling addition of another voice makes Anne jump up in fright, spinning around on her behind as she faces Gilbert, ducking into the half-assembled hut with a look of curious befuddlement at the construction.

“I mean it,” Anne sniffs, wiping her cheeks with little effort to rid them of the tears. Gilbert’s face freezes at her reddened eyes and the clumps of dirt in the loose waves of her fiery red hair, lip still trembling with the memory of the boys in the classroom.

The world is just too cruel to her.

The accompanying looks of Diana and Ruby thrown in his direction remind him to tread lightly – what the whole classroom has seen is no slight matter by any stretch of the term.

“Anne -”

“Don’t even _talk_ to me! As if you’d know what it feels like to stand humiliated and affronted by _everyone_ you know and to feel _nothing_ but shame for yourself and everything you’ve ever _done_! As if you know ANYTHING!”

Her scream ripples through the silence now lying thick upon the four of them, Ruby and Diana looking to the soil with pained looks on their faces, and Gilbert standing struck and immovable a few paces back from them, as if to consider leaving as his own lip quivers with thought, distraught at the sight of Anne screaming with tears running down her face and turning to face the soil again, legs curling up into herself as the stain of red emerges from the froths of white material; an angry, unforgiving mark, not just upon her apron, but upon her very reputation too.

Gilbert swallows, shuffling his feet in the dirt. His breath mingles with the cool, damp air and the smell of rain in the earth.

It feels like Anne.

“It wasn’t your fault. It never will be.”

The words sound diligently thought out, but they’re everything but untrue. The sincerity to his voice is only deepened by his downcast eyes, dark and saddened with remorse and guilt at her suffering. He’s caused her pain in the past, too, he knows – and people continue to perpetuate his mistake in front of him.

The birds chirp in the distance – calls to loved ones or songs to trees, it’s hard to tell. All of it is beautiful. The wind whistles again, then dies.

“It –“

Her voice is muffled against her hands, red hair fanning across her back like a resplendent fox’s fur, rich and striking in its colour. Gilbert hitches breath. Diana and Ruby bite their lips respectively.

Anne sniffs.

“It _hurts_ ,” she cries, sobbing into her hands with a renewed pain that seems to consume her, as she curls even deeper into herself, as if to disappear in amongst the leaves and the earth and the very animals that lurk behind the trees.

Gilbert swallows again, rasping for breath. He really can’t bare to see her in pain like this.

His tentative steps towards her are met with rare and terrified glances from Diana and Ruby, both silently imploring him to rethink his next move. He ignores them both, kneeling down in the soil at her feet as his braces sag, his hair falling into his eyes. He bows his head, reaching out a hand, but retracting it seconds later.

“Anne, what happened… it can’t be helped. Your friends know that -”

“How _could_ they?! They have no _idea_ –“

“Yes, we do!” The girls cry, shuffling forward with indignation.

“Of _course_ we understand, Anne! How could we not?!”

Anne peeks up at them through her arms, trying to hide the tear stains marking her freckled skin, but it doesn’t work. Her entire face screams of pain and injustice, and it makes her three friends wince for her.

“We know better than anyone, Anne.” Diana replies. A sharp glance at Gilbert reminds him that he knows from a purely objective point of view, but that his opinion on the matter is wholly appreciated nonetheless.

Diana places a hand of Anne’s back, lips forming a thin line on her face; she appears as if Anne’s pain is her own; perhaps in some cases, it’s true. What’s happened is entirely subjective for Anne, but a subjective matter for all young women involved. If anything can bring them together, it’s understanding the woes of their gender. And not just from an equality side of the argument.

Gilbert watches as Anne curls into herself, the stain now almost a fixture of her vulnerable form. He can’t testify at all to the concept of just how mortifying the entire ordeal has been for her – heck, he can already vouch for that fact that his privilege far outweighs many people – but he gets it. In his own way. What’s happened here is a universal story for all woman – their bodies serving as their prison because society deems it necessary, wrong and cruel as it may be. If he had it his way, men would be taught all of this, along with women. But he can’t fight every battle he wants to. Not yet, anyway.

For now, he can win this for Anne. Maybe even help her win it herself.

Diana sits back, taking Ruby’s hand to help her up as the two girls stand.

“We best leave her,” Ruby states, brushing off her dress, the moss and soil drifting back down to the ground again. “She just needs time,”

It feels like Ruby isn’t just speaking about now – the hard look in her eyes makes her look older and more fed up than Gilbert ever remembers seeing her. She’s passing comment, not just on Anne’s unfortunate mishap, but also her own situation – of having to resign herself to the idea that everything that makes her a woman will hold her back forever, because men deem it so. It makes Gilbert feel guilty for his entire gender, even when he’s done little wrong against any of the young women before him.

His gender needs to do better. He’s seeing the ramifications for it every day.

“Let’s go,” Diana looks at him with a definitive stare, raising an eyebrow as a breeze catches a stray curl, brushing it into her face. He nods once.

The two girls leave.

Anne remains bundled up inside herself as she hugs the earth and her knees, and for the first time, he can hear her strangled, muffled breathing as she tries to regulate it from all her crying. He breathes in once.

Reaching out a hand, he gently lays it atop her head, stroking her hair once, then again. He hopes it’s soothing, but he’ll stop if she snaps at him. God forbid that he ever invoke Anne Shirley Cuthbert’s temper again.

“You’ll be OK. I know you will. It’s natural – you couldn’t have helped it.”

He continues to stroke her hair, languidly and as gently as he can. He sees the knots of her shoulders relax a little, hearing her sniff once as she looses a breath again.

“I hate myself,” she whispers, and he feels it’s a confession she’s held in for a long time. Perhaps untrue, because her belief and confidence in herself is hard to contend with – but maybe, that’s the whole point. Everybody hates themselves when they’re not the version of themselves that they want to be.

Lying in the muck with a period stain on her dress probably isn’t how Anne likes to think of herself, but Gilbert thinks it’s irrelevant. These things happen. She’s Anne no matter what she does, or what happens to her. It’s simply another bump in the road.

Gilbert sighs, retracting his hand.

“Don’t. You’re better than all of us,”

Anne breathes out again, and Gilbert sighs along with her.

The soil curves under him as he leans forward, placing the palm of his hand on her nape as he presses a kiss into her hair, letting it linger for a small moment before he pulls back. He can feel how she freezes underneath his touch, struck by either his audacity or his sincerity – he’s not entirely sure which.

Leaning back, he gets to his feet, trudging out of the hut with a glance back at her. She lies alone, huddled in a corner like a lost animal, but she looks less beaten down than before.

The three of them sit outside the hut for her, leaning back against the wood. Gilbert’s arms are draped over his raised knees as he gazes into the sky, now falling into dusky pinks and wispy blues that make him smile regardless of the cold air. Diana’s making her way through a schoolbook, perched on her raised knees as Ruby leans over her shoulder, the girls quietly murmuring amongst themselves as they go through each page, letting Gilbert pitch in the answer whenever they’re stuck.

It takes another half an hour before Anne comes out, her face pale as before, but eyes lined and tired, bottom lip bitten into a frenzy. She looks downcast.

Gilbert rises instantly.

“I want to go home.” She states quietly, and the three of them nod. Anne looks to Gilbert, as he gazes at her with a pity and a reverence that she never thought possible when looking at her. She can still feel the cooled reminders of his fingers in her hair, tender and unexpectant of anything as he’d ran through each strand, trying to soothe the wounds before they broke and bled again. And she remembers the kiss, too. It’s held in her memory, like flowers pressed in a book. He smelled rich, like pine needles and wood smoke, all from his days spent in the forests and at the fire, and it layers him with a subtle suggestion of maturity that makes her want to hold onto him for dear life.

“I have to go. Mother will be worried. I’ll take you home, Ruby,” The two girls rush forward, bundling Anne in a hug that conveys solidarity and friendship and endless sympathy, and Anne finds herself enclosed in a warmth unrivalled as of yet. These girls mean everything to her – the depths of her despair are shallowed every time she’s with them.

She whispers goodbye to them as they walk away, glancing back once to send her an encouraging smile. She smiles back wistfully.

Gilbert remains, glancing up at the trees as Anne shuffles her feet. Little can be said about what has occurred between them, but it’s a painful and awkward situation.

“Would you – um, like me to walk you – home?” He curls his hand around his nape, looking sheepishly to the ground. That means a lot more than a simple walk. It’s always been the way.

Anne looks to her boots, feeling the sticky and uncomfortable itch of the drying blood in her underthings. She’s not sure she wants to try venturing anywhere without dealing with it.

“I’m not sure – I don’t think I can walk like this,”

Gilbert’s eyes snap to her dress, noticing that there are faint stains of more leakage, and he grimaces. He forgot how troublesome it can be. Once it starts, it doesn’t stop.

He bites his lip, before unlooping his necktie, handing it to her. She stares at him, shocked and confused, and he smiles wanly.

“Take that. It’ll help a little. At least til you get home,”

Anne blinks at him, reluctantly slipping the tie from his fingers. She tries to ignore the fact that it smells like him.

“Why – why would you do this?”

He stares at her, shoving his hands in his pockets. He looks a little affronted that she considers him to be so cruel as to be so unsympathetic; but, then again, not many men are willing to admit women even _have_ such things.

“Because it’s only fair. I’ll never have to go through any of this – and…you’re – you’re important to me.”

Anne looks at him, feeling the breeze brush against her face.

He looks beautiful in this light – skin turned a musky gold by the dying sunlight and hair crested with bronze halos, eyes searching for something that he knows he’s already found but can’t help but gaze at. He looks strong, and so unlike the boy who pulled her braids in the classroom years ago.

He’s a young man, now. That makes him a different person.

She was never attracted to Gilbert Blythe.

But now, she – she can’t stop falling for him.

“I’ll be two minutes,”

When she’s finished, they walk to Green Gables, the talk banal and awkward.

But it feels natural. It feels real.

 

It feels like home.

 

~          ~          ~

 

Diana thinks that perhaps the nerves in her stomach are just hunger pangs, but she knows better than this.

She knows that she has a choice in life – one that many a young woman before her have never had, and had never even entertained of having. Or maybe they did. Women have wanted lots of things for a very long time – she’s not naïve enough anymore to believe that women have been contented to bow down to the rules enforced upon them.

She will be quite possibly one of many in her family to subvert what her younger self would have happily complied with. But Diana is 17 now – and she’s not prepared to just fall into line anymore.

As her parents come into the room, the communal chatter enough to set her teeth on edge as she sits at the piano, Diana considers how best to phrase this.

_I’m not going to do what you want of me._

She perhaps think that might come off as strong for an opening statement. But then, she feels she might be in the market of making this a quick affair.

Her mother and father have always expected her to follow in her mother’s footsteps – but since Aunt Josephine’s party – and all the subsequent ones after that – some fire in her has demanded that she follow her heart and make room for something different and challenging and exciting and new.

Avonlea is too small when the world is so big.

Gilbert Blythe isn’t the only one who’s going to venture to places previously unknown.

“Mother,”

The simple statement catches her mother’s attention, and the party falls into silence. Minnie May has taken a seat with a book, on the chaise lounge. At age eleven, she is learning the cruelly-learned hardships of Diana’s youth for the first time, but taking it as well as one can. She’s never been one to suffer fools.

“I have something to tell you,” Minnie May’s eyes drift up from her page, looking viciously curious. Diana scowls in her direction. She needs to focus.

“Diana, dear, whatever is the matter?” The concerned tone makes Diana internally wince. Of course, her mother soaks it in affection and suddenly she’s losing her nerve.

She gingerly closes the piano lid, coming to stand around beside the instrument, hand on the lid for support. It’s the reason for everything – it’s her very self.

“Mother, I’m not -” She failingly tries to grasp exactly what the matter is. Ever since she met Celine, there’s been a hunger to be something other than a wife, or a trophy for a man’s achievements. It scared her, at first. But now – now it’s consuming her. She needs to get out of her, and see the world. Play her music for people and show them that she can be a fantastically rich and intriguing person, all because she knows how to entrap their hearts. She can whisk them away with her piano keys – and it’s all she’s ever wanted since that day.

“Mother, I want – I’ve decided to play my instrument - as a career. I want play it professionally.”

It sounds strong and definitive – perhaps an end to the conversation before it’s begun, but the expression on her parents’ face sends chills dancing precariously down her spine. They look - frozen. Perhaps unable to process her decision, so unable to process their emotions.

Diana bites the inside of her cheek.

This isn’t –

This isn’t going well.

“Mother, I met a pianist – Celine! She plays for a living – she travels the world! She’s been to _Paris_ , and _Berlin_ , and all over _Europe_! I want something for _myself_ – I can’t _stand_ the idea of never _leaving_ Avonlea –“

“Diana, that is quite enough. You can’t be serious,” It is not so much shock, but rather fear, that has crept into her mother’s eyes. She’s holding her shawl to her figure, staring at Diana as if her daughter has transformed before her eyes. Perhaps, in a way, she has. Diana is no longer a little girl – her life should rightly be her own. Society disagrees, but that hasn’t stopped others.

“I’m perfectly serious, Mother.”

The room goes deadly quiet, and Diana grips the lid of the piano, trying to grapple her nerves together. Whether or not her parents agree is of little consequence. It’s a courtesy, if anything else. It’s different now – there’s little time for complying to age-old standards anymore.

She certainly doesn’t see other young women trying to hold onto the past. She doesn’t intend on abandoning them.

“I won’t allow it,” It’s her father that speaks up, but he looks pained as the words come from his mouth. This hardly seems like him.

“I won’t allow you to go into the world without so much as a notion of what it’s like, Diana. When you’re older, and married, then –“

Diana’s temper snaps.

“I don’t want to get married! Not for convenience! I’m sick of playing a perfect daughter! It’s the end of a century, father – I don’t want to still be stuck in this house, tied to ideals I don’t even hold!”

“There is nothing wrong with housekeeping!” Her mother snaps, but the look of regret in her faces, eyes tired, tells another story entirely.

“There is for me!” Diana snaps. “It’s 1882! 18 more years and it’ll be a new century! I can’t stand by and pretend like times aren’t changing! I won’t stay stuck here for the rest of my life!”

Her mother’s lips purse.

“And _how_ _–exactly_ \- do you plan of having a career as a pianist?”

Diana bites her lip, watching her mother. She has aged since she met Anne those 4 years go, and it shows. The times move quickly, and her mother seems discontent to move with them. She looks tired, and not just with her daily routine. Her marriage has survived many a harsh winter, but rebellion from her children seems to have worn her down. Diana is no longer the girl she expected her to be – and perhaps it is the final crack.

Frankly, Diana’s beginning not to care.

“I’ll figure it out, I’m sure.” She replies in a frosty manner, mimicking her mother’s tone. It serves to leave her mother looking like she’s been slapped across the face.

“This is preposterous,” her father sighs, cradling his forehead with a little more dramatics that Diana thinks necessary.

“And I suppose we have Anne to thank for this ridiculous notion, is it? She never did know when to grow up –“

The fury in Diana’s gut rises again.

“Anne saved Minnie May’s life, if you remember, Mother! And no, she didn’t, she you so courteously asked! I decided for myself!”

Her mother leaps to her feet, stalking to her. They look each other straight in the eye, Diana only an inch or so taller.

“I won’t allow it, Diana,”

Diana glares at her, feeling the tears well behind her eyes, but she grips the piano’s lid, feeling her nails dig into the varnished wood.

“You don’t have to,” She hisses, blinking as the tears come to the front of her eyes, blurring her vision. She brings herself up to her fullest height and walks past her mother, looking at Minnie May as she goes.

“Diana! Come back here this instant! We haven’t finished!”

She keeps walking.

“DIANA!”

She takes the stairs to her room, closing the door neatly, affecting poise and grace. She won’t lose her dignity over this.

She may lose her family over it, but perhaps it’s a necessary sacrifice.

It bites into her core, as the tears roll down her face, undoing her hair as she watches her reflection cry back at her.

 

Back in the drawing room, Minnie May closes her book, getting to her feet.

“You can’t make her change her mind.”

She leaves without another word, book in tow, as both the Barrys stand in quiet and stunned silence.

Not another word is uttered that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That little divergence with Diana was super interesting to write, namely because Season 2 brought up an interesting proposition for Diana. She can be whatever she wants, if she really wants it, and that was a truly intriguing idea for me. Diana has been friends with Anne for a long time - I doubt she's willing to fully comply with anything anymore. 
> 
> But alas, who knows how that might pan out for her. You'll just have to wait and see! *laughs*
> 
> Thank you again, and as always, read and review, folks! It's a pure joy to hear what you guys think.


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